John J. Eagle & Co, New York
I think this company descends from the mid-19th century Eagle & Hazard, which
operated the Eagle Line between New York and Mobile, Alabama, primarily for the
cotton trade. The flag is swallow-tailed with a red, white, and blue border and
the abbreviation E & Co in light blue on a white field.
Source: www.steamship.net (no longer available)

did one firm, always called Earle, operate two shipping lines: the
Shippers' Line and the Eagle Line?

If the above is true, does this explain the use of two different flags?

Are these really two different firms, the one Earle, the other Eagle, and
is the Directory
mistaken?

Lastly, is the red-white-blue version the successor of the red swallowtail of
Earle, now having
gone into partnership?

Well, it seems 'John I. Earle' flew the red flag and 'John I. Earle & Co.' the
white one. The fifth card on the page at
http://www.anmm.gov.au/gold150/sail1.htm is dated 1859 and mentions '& Co.'
(hence the white flag) but at the same time, uses the commercial name 'Shippers'
Line':

So in view of these cards (no doubt there are others) and on the
strength of the Directory of Private Signals may we assume, for the
time being, that the 'John E. Eagle' company name is a conflation
of 'John I. Earle' and 'Eagle Line'?Jan Mertens, 21-22 August 2005

The Eastern Steamship Company was founded in 1901 by the Wall Street
financier C. W. Morse by consolidating six small New England coastwise lines. It
provided service between New York and New England and later branched into winter
cruises to Florida. The line stopped operating during World War II, then resumed
business briefly after the war with summer cruises to Nova Scotia. The company
suspended operations again in 1954 and was bought by F. Leslie Fraser. Fraser
shifted the vessels to the Panamanian flag and again
conducted a cruise service along the New England and Canadian Maritimes coast
until 1962, when he sold the line to W. K. Lovett. Lovett sold it in turn to the
Norwegian company Gotaas-Larson in 1970, after which the Eastern name and house
flag passed out of use. The present-day Royal Caribbean Cruise Line is in part
the corporate descendant of the Eastern Steamship Co.

image
by Joe McMillan

The first flag I have found was in [ruh09], a blue trapezoid with the
initials of the company in white.
Source: 1909 update to Flaggenbuch 1905

images
by Joe McMillan

By 1912, the house flag was a blue swallowtail with a red E inside a red
circle. This flag appears in Lloyds Flags and Funnels (1912) and Talbot-Booth (1937).
National Geographic (1934), however, showed a blue burgee-shaped flag with a plain white E,
which remained in use into the early 1950s Wedge (1951) until F. L. Fraser bought the
company in 1954.

images
by Joe McMillan

Under Fraser, Eastern sailed under a red flag with a blue lozenge throughout
and a white F for the owner's last name. W. K. Lovett kept this design but
changed the initial to an L when he took over in 1962. (Source: Web history of
Eastern SS. Co--for which I've lost the URL--and (I believe) images of company
memorabilia at www.steamship.net (no longer available)).

Joe McMillan, 6 October 2001

image
by Ivan Sache

This company not only had plenty of owners and flags but also of names and
moved around the country it seems with sources noting it in Portland, Boston,
New York and Miami over its lifetime. Names appear to have started with Eastern
Steamship Co., then Eastern Steamship Corporation, Eastern Steamship Lines Inc.
and finally ending back as Eastern Steamship Corporation by 1962. As well as the
flags shown here, Talbot-Booth in his Merchant
Ships 1942 adds another with a normal blue swallowtail bordered white and
bearing a white "E" but he also notes that for a
short time previously the letter was red. There is one
discrepancy, I feel, in that the flag he shows on the funnel is a tapered
swallowtail and it is thus possible that there is a connection with the
plain blue version shown by National Geographic and Brown 1951, both of whom
also show a white bordered flag on the funnel even if not for the flag
itself.Neale Rosanoski, 9 March 2004

White field bearing blue
five-pointed star within a blue ring, a red sans serif initial “E” in the centre
of said star (national colours). We do not see the item completely – it should
be a swallowtail. It would be nice to have this confirmed by a house flag book
or any other source going beyond the black-and-white picture linked to, as the
present line of conjecture is rather thin.Jan Mertens, 21 July 2010

Concerning this flag, I suggest that the proportions of the image are a bit
out at 1x2 when Jan states the source says 3x5. However the connection to "prove
the flag" is easy enough. The company was acquired by Gotaas-Larsen of Norway in
1970 who ran it under the same name until 1981 when it was restyled Eastern
Cruises and was later merged into Admiral Cruises. According to the source "US
Passenger Liners Since 1945" the old colours went out of use in this 1970 sale
and what Jan has discovered is the adoption of the
Gotaas-Larsen
flag with the addition of a red "E" on the star. To confuse the issue
another actual flag on offer appears to show a normal 4x6 rectangular flag
version without a swallowtail at
http://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/eastern-steamship-lines-flag-emerald-seas-cruise-1
but all the various offers showing on the internet show the same flag logo - see
an ashtray flag logo at
http://www.rubyplaza.com/item/677830-105-RP/Vintage-Eastern-Steamship-Lines-Glass.
Neale Rosanoski, 4 June 2011

This company based in Erie, Pa. flew this flag, as seen on
this page. It is an orange flag with black
company initials ‘ESS’ inscribed in a triangular black border, point
downwards. The house flag in a rigid form (painted?) can be seen
here.
This company belonged to Erie Sand and Gravel Co. but was bought by Oglebay
and Norton in January 2003. At that time:
“Erie Sand & Gravel Company operates a dock, a Great Lakes Flag vessel, a
ready-mix concrete facility and a trucking company that distributes
construction sand and aggregates in the northwest Pennsylvania/western New
York region.”

Eschen & Minor Co., San Francisco
One of the last companies operating under sail. Flag divided per saltire, white
in the hoist and fly, red in the upper quadrant and blue in the lower, with the
letters E and M in white, arranged vertically.
Source: Lloyds 1912